Presence of an External Master of Knowledge. Wallace Stevens. EPOPTEIA: the homages.

Under the shape of his sail, Ulysses,Symbol of the seeker, crossing by night,The giant sea, read his own mind. He said, “As I know, I am and have The right to be.” He guided his boat Beneath the middle stars and said:”Here I feel the human loneliness And that, in space and solitude, Which knowledge is: the world and fate, The right within me and about me, Joined in a triumphant vigor, Like a direction on which I depend . . .A longer, deeper breath sustains This eloquence of right, since knowing And being are one – the right to know Is equal to the right to be. The great Omnium descends on me, Like an absolute out of this eloquence.”The sharp sail of Ulysses seemed, In the breathings of that soliloquy, Alive with an enigma’s flittering, And bodying, and being there, As he moved, straightly, on and on Through clumped stars dangling all the way.